Five Times a Hero
by Swanseajill
Summary: Five incidents in Dean Winchester’s life where he proves himself to be a hero. In honor of my beta, stealthyone, and in a shameless attempt to attract more readers the story is subtitled, Five Times Dean Takes His Shirt Off.


**Five Times a Hero **

by Swanseajill

Summary: Five incidents in Dean Winchester's life where he proves himself to be a hero. In honor of my beta, stealthyone, and in a shameless attempt to attract more readers, the story is subtitled: _Five Times Dean Takes his Shirt off._

Rating: PG-13 (Genfic)

Disclaimer: I don't own them and I'm not making any money from them.

Author's Notes: Many thanks to stealthyone for her usual fantastic beta and for encouraging me to continue writing.

I.

"Dean! Deaaaaaaaaaan!"

Dean dropped the rag he'd been using to polish the Impala and raced off in the direction of the anguished cry. He found his five-year-old brother huddled in a heap at the foot of a large tree, one arm curled around his head, the other batting at the air. A dozen or so wasps were humming ominously around him.

Dean skidded to a halt a few feet away. "Sammy, keep still. They won't sting you if you keep still." He wasn't totally sure this was true, but he did know that they'd sting for sure if Sammy kept windmilling his arm around like that.

"Get them off me!" Sammy sobbed.

Dean edged a little closer. Sammy was terrified of wasps; one had flown into his mouth and stung him last year, and ever since then he'd get hysterical every time he saw one. Dean wasn't exactly their biggest fan himself, so he approached cautiously, reaching out a hand to his brother. "Sammy," he said in the calmest and most authoritative voice he could muster, "take my hand and crawl backwards slowly."

Sammy shook his head, curling up tighter. "No! They'll get me! They'll get in my mouth!"

"No, they won't. Just… keep still and take my hand."

But keeping still while the feared insects buzzed around him was beyond a terrified five-year-old's ability, and Sammy kept swatting wildly at the air.

Then Dean heard a louder hum and looked further up the tree to see more wasps swarming out of a hole. Sammy had disturbed a nest. He had to do something quickly or Sammy would be badly stung. He looked around wildly for anything he could use to ward off the insects. There was nothing of any use, so he made a quick decision. Pulling off his T-shirt, he grabbed Sammy's arm with one hand and wrapped the shirt around his brother's head with the other. "Okay, you're safe, they can't get in your mouth now. Come on!"

This time Sammy allowed himself to be pulled away. Dean backed slowly away from the tree, then hefted his brother up. Sammy wrapped both arms around Dean's neck as he started running. The swarm flew in pursuit and Dean flinched as he felt something sting first his arm and then his back several times. He kept running until he reached the motel room. He hammered on the door and almost fell into the room when Dad opened it.

"Dean! What happened?"

Dean was relieved to be able to put his brother down. Sammy was getting way too heavy to carry like that.

Dean pulled the T-shirt off Sammy's head and his brother rushed to their father, flinging his arms around his legs.

Dean plopped down on the bed, panting from the frantic run. "Wasp nest," he gasped. "Sammy must have scared 'em and they started attacking."

John gently disentangled his younger son and lifted him up on the bed beside his brother. "You okay, champ? Did you get stung?"

Sammy shook his head, rubbing his fist across his eyes. "N...no. Dean saved me. He's a hero!"

Dad looked across at Dean, who shrugged, slightly embarrassed by his brother's praise.

"I just picked him up, that's all," Dean said.

Dad tousled Sammy's hair, and then turned his attention to Dean. "Did you get stung, Deano?"

"Yeah. On my back and my arm."

"Let's take a look."

Dad checked the stings, then fetched the first-aid kit.

Dean bit his lip when Dad pulled the stingers out – it hurt real bad, but he wasn't going to cry. Dad was always telling him that big boys don't cry, and he didn't want his father to think he was a baby. Thankfully, the pain receded a little when Dad rubbed on antiseptic cream.

"There you go," Dad said. "That wasn't too bad, was it? Want to put your T-shirt back on, son? It's a little chilly in here."

Dean wrinkled his nose when his father handed him the crumpled shirt. It looked clean, but still… "It's all waspy,"

Dad laughed. "I guess it is."

He fished a clean T-shirt out of Dean's bag and Dean pulled it over his head, wincing a little as the action pulled at the stings on his back. He could feel Dad's eyes on him and looked up, a little fearful in case his father was going to punish him for almost letting Sammy get hurt. Looking after his brother was his job, but it was hard to keep him in sight all the time. But Dad's eyes weren't angry and his voice was gentle as he looked at Dean solemnly

"You did good, son, looking out for your brother. I'm proud of you."

It was worth all the wasp stings in the world to hear those words.

II.

John tried to stand, but his left ankle buckled beneath him and he bit back a groan of pain as he collapsed to the ground.

He should have been more careful. When he and Dean had unexpectedly run into their prey deep in the heart of the cave system, they had been too occupied fighting it to pay much attention to what lay underfoot. He had just blasted the chulka head-on with the flamethrower when he tripped over something and went down heavily on his ankle. The chulka had retreated, but they'd both known it would be back. Especially as the thing he'd tripped over had turned out to be a human skull. They'd accidentally wandered into the chulka's feeding ground.

At least Sam was safe back at the hotel. John rolled his eyes as he recalled the fight they'd had when he'd insisted his youngest stay behind, but chulkas were big, powerful and dangerous, and although he'd begun to take Sam out on certain hunts, this was no place for a thirteen-year-old.

He was beginning to think it wasn't any place for a seventeen-year-old, either.

Dean had been hunting with John since he was nine years old, and John was proud of the man his son was becoming. He was quick, intuitive and careful – most of the time. But he had one flaw that John was afraid would prove fatal one day. At any sign of a threat to his father or his brother, Dean would recklessly throw himself in the way of danger. As he had proved on this occasion.

John chewed on his lip, checking his watch by the light of his torch for the fiftieth time. It had been half an hour since Dean had run off in pursuit of the chulka without stopping to consult with his father. John had been angry at first, but he had to admit that he probably would have done the same thing. Still, it was frustrating to be stuck here, knowing his son was out there in the dark facing a dangerous predator alone.

A few minutes of lip-gnawing later, he heard footsteps echoing down the tunnel towards him. Unable to tell if they belonged to human or beast, he grasped his flamethrower more tightly and prepared to do battle.

He heaved a sigh of relief when Dean appeared in the cave entrance. He couldn't see his son clearly in the dim light, but what he could see was bruised, a little bloody and naked from the waist up.

Not badly hurt, though, if the broad grin and smug expression were anything to go by.

Dean walked across the cave and casually tossed the flamethrower down. "Whew! That was one slimy beast."

"I take it you killed it?"

"Oh, yeah. Blasted it to hell and back."

"Good." John eyed the crumpled yellow rag in his son's hand. "What happened to your shirt?"

Dean's grin broadened. "I was trying to work out how to flush the mother… the monster out and I remembered the research we did on this thing. It's like a bull, right? The color red makes a bull mad; with a chulka, it's yellow. So I stuck my shirt on a rock in a dead-end cave and waited."

John raised an eyebrow. "And?"

Dean looked, if possible, even more smug than before. "Worked like a charm. Add a note to your journal, Dad – chulkas are big and powerful, but they don't have much upstairs," he said, tapping his forehead with two fingers.. "Stupid beast walked straight into the trap, and kaboom, it was history."

John critically eyed his son. Judging by the cuts and bruises adorning Dean's torso, there was probably a lot more to this story than met the eye, and the lure had been a lot more dangerous than Dean was making out. John sighed. He only had himself to blame for training the boy to be so resourceful and fearless. And if Dean was going to survive out there – and take care of his brother – these were two qualities he was going to need by the bucketful.

The hero complex – that was something he was going to have to work on.

III.

"I can't do this!" Dean hissed at his brother, eyes flicking desperately around the room in search of an escape route.

"Of course you can." Sam stood there, arms folded, maddeningly calm. "Just remember it's all for a good cause."

"Oh, that's fine coming from you. You're not the one who has to go in there and… and…"

"Look," Sam said in the level, reasonable tone he adopted when dealing with children, animals and snarling brothers, "I'd do it myself, but I'm just too tall."

Dean grunted, unable to dispute the truth of at least the second part of the statement, and reluctantly began to pull his jeans off.

"Anyway," Sam went on brightly, "you're the one who asked Sister Clare if there was anything else we could do for her."

"Yeah, like salting and burning bones! _You're_ the one who agreed to this… this…"

"Act of charity," Sam supplied helpfully.

Dean growled as he pulled his shirt over his head. "You know, if it's just your height that's the problem," he ground out, "I could easy arrange to reduce it by a couple of inches – by cutting your damned head off!"

Sam seemed unmoved by the threat. "Come on, Dean, get a grip. It's not like she's asked you to go up against a wendigo or anything."

"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. This is in a different league."

"Don't be such a girl. No one will even know it's you. You just have to – perform a bit."

"_Perform? _Just which one of us had a starring role in that chick-flick play in high school?"

"Dean, you do it all the time. Perform, I mean. Every time we're pretending to be someone we're not– "

"It's not the same." He knew he sounded petulant, but he couldn't help it. He had fearlessly faced down demons, monsters, and everything in between, but this was the most terrifying thing he'd ever had to do in his whole life. Period.

"Sure it is."

The calm, reasonable tone was back and Dean wanted to scream.

There was a knock at the door and a bright voice asked, "Are you almost ready in there?"

"Just another couple of minutes," Sam called back while Dean froze in horror. "Dean."

"What?"

"Don't forget the boxers."

ooooooo

Five minutes later Dean stood outside the door to East Wing, nervously pulling at skin-tight Lycra that left little to the imagination. Sam stood beside him, eyes still dancing with suppressed mirth, mouth working as he tried not to grin.

Dean had a sudden urge to put his hands around his brother's neck. A little pressure on the larynx-- Sam opened his mouth and Dean held up a finger. "Not. One. Word. Got it?"

Sam grinned. "What you gonna do, web me to death?"

Dean had just opened his mouth to tell his brother exactly where he was planning to insert some webbing when the door opened and Sister Clare's cherubic face beamed out, beckoning him in.

He heard Sam whisper, "My hero!" as he stepped through the doorway. He put a hand behind his back and gave Sam the finger. Then he took a deep breath and squared his jaw as the good sister announced to the room of fifteen bedridden kids, "Children, this afternoon you have a very famous and important visitor. Let's give a great big hand to _Spiderman_!"

IV.

There was something wrong with the world. It was moving slowly in circles. He was pretty sure it shouldn't do that. Trees, at least, shouldn't sway the way these were – the branches maybe, but surely not the trunks as well?

"Sam. Hey Sammy, you with me?"

Sam blinked up at the four Deans that had suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Hi, Dean." The words sounded strange, as if he was under water.

"That's it, Sammy. Stay with me. I need you to stay awake."

It wasn't until Dean mentioned staying awake that Sam realized just how much he wanted to sleep. But his head was pounding and his leg-- "Shit."

"I know it hurts, but it's going to be all right. You're going to be fine."

"Okay."

Sam watched, puzzled, as the four Deans pulled their T-shirts over their heads.

"What'cha doin'?"

"Your leg's bleeding, Sam."

It was strange that he could see four Deans but only hear one. He also wasn't sure what his bleeding leg had to do with Dean stripping off on a chilly October night in the middle of the forest, but he hurt too much to ask. Sometimes with Dean, it was better not to ask.

Gradually, the Deans merged into one. Sam blinked. The trees had stopped moving, too. That was a relief. He had started feeling a little seasick. He looked around him, taking in his surroundings. Trees. Lots of trees. He was lying on the ground at the base of one of them. There was something soft under his head and he recognized Dean's long-sleeved green shirt out of the corner of his eye. He lay still, tracking Dean's movements as his brother folded his T-shirt into a pad, and then dropped down on his knees beside him.

"Sam, I'm going to try and stop the bleeding now. It's going to hurt."

He'd kind of worked out by now that he was hurt. After all, lying on cold, damp leaves in the middle of the night wasn't a favorite pastime, and the ill-concealed concern plastered over Dean's face was another little clue that something was badly wrong. He felt quite pleased with himself to have worked that out, considering his brain seemed to be working at half speed through a wad of cotton wool.

"Okay?" Dean asked.

"Okay," Sam agreed, wishing his voice sounded a little more manly and a little less weak and pathetic.

Sam watched Dean take a deep breath and then press the pad of black fabric firmly against his upper thigh. Searing pain shot through his leg and he must have screamed, for Dean's face screwed up in sympathetic anguish.

Dean didn't take the pressure off, but he started talking.

"I'm sorry. I know it hurts, but I have to stop the bleeding. Just hang in there, Sam. It'll be okay soon, I promise. Everything's gonna be all right."

Sam lay as still as he could, battling with the pain, holding on to his brother's voice. All through his life, he had accepted that when Dean said everything was going to be all right, it would be all right. He had never questioned this as a child, because while his brother's methods were sometimes unorthodox, he had always come through. Always. And the fact was, Sam suddenly realized, although they were men now, not boys, nothing had changed.

After a surprisingly short time, Dean sat back on his haunches and ran bloodstained hands through his hair. He smiled at Sam. "Bleeding's stopped. Just rest here for a minute, then we'll think about getting you back to the car."

Sam studied his brother, who was looking a bit too pale and shivering – a lot. "Put your T-shirt back on, bro, you'll freeze to death."

"Are you kidding? It's soaked through with nerdy blood – I might catch something. Anyway, I need to bind the wound with it."

Sam watched as Dean did just that, biting back a yelp as Dean pulled the fabric tight and knotted it off. Then he frowned.

"That's your Metallica T-shirt," Sam said.

"So?"

"Dean, you love that shirt."

"Yeah, well, life's a bitch."

"Dean, don't you care that you've just ruined your favorite shirt?"

Dean looked at him strangely for a moment, then his lips quirked. "You're right. I've just used a classic, one-of-a-kind shirt to soak up the blood of a college geek with no taste in music. Dude, the sacrifices I make for this family."

Sam grinned. "Sure, Dean. You're a real hero." And he held his brother's eyes just long enough to know that Dean understood the truth behind those words supposedly spoken in jest.

V.

It had been a tough gig. Several children dead at the hands of a lake monster, the final one taken and killed only hours before he and Sam had tracked down the killer and stopped its reign of death once and for all.

Of course, they hadn't been able to tell anyone the whole truth, and no one really needed to know that the monster had been possessed. They'd shown the body of the beast to a couple of reliable witnesses before burning it, to reassure them that the threat was really gone. The locals had heralded them as heroes, dragging them back to the local bar and plying them with free drinks.

The door to the small apartment clicked shut behind them and Dean turned to face his companion, automatically switching on the killer smile that drove the women wild.

It hadn't been difficult to score – hell, even Sam would have scored tonight, had he shown any interest. But no, goody-two-shoes college boy had excused himself and taken his sorry, boring ass back to the motel. Well, it was his loss, Dean thought. They had different ways of winding down after a case. He liked to get laid. Sam liked to crash out and read a book. It was as simple as that.

"You really are a hero, you know?" Sherri purred in his ear, her breath tickling his cheek.

He reached out and pulled her closer to him. "You think so? Gonna show me how grateful you are?"

Or maybe it wasn't quite as simple as that. Dean knew that Sam liked to read because it helped him to forget. To forget, for a little while, that Jess had been killed, burned to death by The Demon to haunt his dreams forever. To forget that he was living a life he had never wanted and was part of only because of his desire to find his girlfriend's killer.

Dean got laid for the same kind of reasons. Despite the fact that hunting was all he knew and all he needed, his life was full of fear and regret. Fear that one day Sam will have had enough and will leave him to continue the quest alone. Fear that they'll never find their father. Regret that he'd had to leave his dreams behind long ago, dreams that would never quite go away. And regret that one day he'll end up alone.

He'd learned his lessons well over the years. Don't get attached, don't let yourself feel anything for anyone other than your family. Allowing yourself to get close to someone – to either of you. He'd lived through the pain of making a friend at school, only to have to start over three or six months later when Dad moved them on again. And, he'd learned that being in love was something that could never figure into his life. His experience with Cassie had taught him that, and the memory of her was still an aching hurt that never went away.

Girls like Sherri, they were different. He was always careful to choose girls who were out for a good time, no strings attached, a quick one-nighter and goodbye in the morning. He'd been with a lot of girls over the years. He never remembered their names, but it didn't matter, really. He was grateful to all of them because each one had given him a gift – a night or maybe two when he could switch off his thoughts, forget his life for a few short hours and give himself over to nothing more than the physical pleasure of the moment.

Sherri smiled, kissed him quickly and reached behind her to unzip her dress. Dean began to unbutton his jeans, a familiar need stirring in his groin.

Tomorrow, he would face once more the consequences of the life he led, and the anguish of his failure to save that final child would hit him full force. But for now, he just wanted to lose himself in sensation. That had to be enough, because he knew it was the most he would ever have.

He tugged his shirt over his head, flung it into a corner of the room, and pulled Sherri down with him onto the bed.

End


End file.
